<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>wishing for the dawn by orphan_account</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29998473">wishing for the dawn</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account'>orphan_account</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>No. 6 (Anime &amp; Manga)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canon Compliant, Dreams, Falling In Love, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 19:28:59</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>869</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29998473</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Shion had never dreamed about anybody the way he dreamed about Nezumi.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Nezumi/Shion (No. 6)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>27</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>wishing for the dawn</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Shion dreamed about Nezumi all the time.</p><p>He had no idea why. He had never dreamed about anybody else over and over, night after night, and he had certainly never dreamed about anybody in the way he dreamed about Nezumi. And he never asked the dreams to come. They simply drifted across his sleep and filled it up like autumn leaves in a puddle.</p><p>They were strange and awkward and even a little frightening. Yet he could not say that they displeased him.</p><p>In one dream that came often, Shion would be standing at the stove, stirring something savory into the evening’s stew, when Nezumi would come in from work. Pale and bone-tired, lips still tinged with Ophelia’s stage makeup, Nezumi would slam the door and scuff the dust off his boots. Shion would greet him in a gentle voice, and Nezumi’s grim eyes and set jaw would soften in response. As Shion hung up his coat and pulled out a chair and set the table with steaming bowls, Nezumi would not speak, but his sinking into his seat and smiling up at Shion would be more than enough.</p><p>And then they would eat and talk, and laugh quietly, and the walls and warmth would envelop them like loving arms. And Shion would know for certain that the world was going to be all right.</p><p>Another common dream was one that Shion found it hard to think about later. In it, Shion would be half-asleep in the bathtub, head and elbows resting on the rim, letting the tension of the day melt out of him. Then a rustle and a quiet splash or two, and the water would ripple a little against his bare chest. When he looked up, Nezumi would be sitting in the other end of the bathtub, smiling at him.</p><p>Shion would close his eyes again, painfully and gloriously conscious of the water droplets on Nezumi’s slim shoulders, the glistening dripping of his dark hair. Every ripple in the water would send shivers down Shion’s spine. And then sometimes Nezumi would move nearer, far too close and yet not close enough. And then his hand, pale under the water, might rest on Shion’s naked leg. Or perhaps his long callused fingers would trace the scar along Shion’s neck, and he would lean in, and…</p><p>Shion always awoke just then, blushing and shivering and thrilling all over. Then he would lie awake in the darkness, thinking about the slim shadow of Nezumi breathing soft and slow in the bed against the wall, and it would take long minutes for sleep to take him back. It was always hard to look Nezumi in the eye the next morning.</p><p>Every so often Shion had nightmares about Nezumi. Most of the time they would be talking about nothing, talking and smiling, and then Nezumi would clutch at his neck and gasp and begin to scream. And Shion would try to chisel the parasite out of his flesh, tears blinding him and fingers trembling, and Nezumi would shriek and flail and turn sickly gray and shed hanks of white hair and die. Always die. And Shion would wake up biting back his sobs. Or sometimes someone would shoot Nezumi and Shion would cradle him as he choked out his life in thick mouthfuls of blood. Or sometimes—the worst times—Nezumi would be tortured to death, burned and beaten and reduced to a twisted mass of bloody flesh by the No. 6 officials and Shion would watch in helpless agony and wake up gasping. He never got back to sleep after that.</p><p>But in Shion’s favorite dream, they were together in a children’s playground filled with frost, glittering under the moonlight. They would talk and laugh and throw handfuls of snow. Whenever Nezumi’s hair began slipping loose, Shion would comb it out with his hands and tie it back up, and whenever Shion’s fingers grew raw and numb, Nezumi would warm them in his breath. The chilly air would get into Shion’s bones and make him feel silly and light-headed and so happy that it felt as though nothing bad could ever happen again.</p><p>Sometimes in that dream, Nezumi tugged Shion by both hands into the shadows under a bare ice-jeweled tree and brushed a kiss across his chapped lips, light and cold and gone almost before it came, like a single snowflake.</p><p>Sometimes they would waltz together, twirling among the stone animals and the swing set and the monkey bars, warm in each other’s arms and safe as the tiny figures in a snow globe.</p><p>But sometimes they simply talked and laughed and played until the sun began to rise. Then they would lie side by side in the snow and watched the stars go out, one by one, and the sky turn pink. They would say nothing. Nothing would need to be said. Their hearts would beat and their lungs would breathe in perfect silent rhythm. And they would be holding hands the way they had when they first met, in simpler, sweeter times when they were children; fingers interlocked like a promise fulfilled.</p><p>And Shion would wake wanting more than anything for that dream to come true someday.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>i wrote this when i was much younger, but i was looking through my old things and i thought i would post it. </p><p>there's just something about no. 6. i remember watching it all in a day (setting off my parents' internet control software with the hentai ads you always get on anime streaming sites) and crying because it was so very lovely.</p><p>i hope you enjoyed. ^_^</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>